Arkaroola Revisited – Part 1 – aerial

4X4, Arkaroola, Australia, camera, desert, Landscape, landscape, plains, river/creeks, SA, salt, sand, Textures, Tony Stott


When Tony Stott and The Doc went on an adventure to the Flinders Ranges we visited Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary. One of the owners Doug Sprigg, loves to fly so we went on a flight over Lake Froome and the Flinders Ranges.

The Flinders Ranges is one of the most geologically unique places in the world. Geologists from all around the globe visit. There is an extraordinary variety of rocks twisted and bent by tectonic forces under the earth. For example, while driving in Brachina Gorge you drove over something like 700 million years of rock layers, that have been bent from the horizontal to the vertical.

One of The Doc’s favorite places to visit. Further south you have Wilpena Pound. Now back to the flight.

Tony had one camera (a Canon 5DII) and The Doc two (Canon 1DX and a Pentax 645Z), We sat on opposite sides of the plane to maximize our opportunities. When processing the images it became clear Tony often had the better side, as The Doc was often photographing into the sun. Together we got a nice mix of images.

Part 1 is below with the flight going out over Lake Froome. Lucky for us the Lake had some water still giving us extraordinary colours and textures. Lake Froome is apparently the whitest salt lake in the world and used by NASA to take various measurements.

Enjoy, Viva Cristo Rey.


Lorella Springs Station revisited – Part 2

4X4, Australia, coastal, Landscape, landscape, Lorella Springs, NT, other, river/creeks, sand, seascape, Textures

Part 1 is located here.

Part 2 are images from a Pentax Medium Format camera, were the number of missed shots were lower on this camera than the Canon posted yesterday in Part 1. Every other time it was the reverse.

The Gulf of Carpentaria is an under explored part of Australia. Only this week AWC announced a new species of legless lizard, Lerista munuwajarlu, has been officially accepted after 10 years of the research.

Click on an image to see a slideshow at full size. Viva Cristo Rey.

Lorella Springs Station revisited – Part 1

4X4, Australia, coastal, Landscape, Lorella Springs, NT, Plant, sand, Textures, trees

The hardest lighting conditions The Doc has had on a helicopter trip was at Lorella Springs Station in the Northern Territory. The pilot was Nick, who also took The Doc around Arnhem Land and Kakadu.

There was low light, overcast and the moving helicopter meant many missed shots (blurred due to movement).

Lorella Springs is a working cattle station, and the flight went over the Lost City – one of many using that name in Australia, out to the Roper Region of the Gulf of Carpentaria, following Rosie Creek.

Part 1 was taken with a Canon 1DX camera. Coming in Part 2 are the Pentax Medium Format images. Click on an image to see a slideshow at full size. Viva Cristo Rey.

Part 2 is here.

Weedscan App work

Uncategorised

The Doc is working as a volunteer project for the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions. They need 100’s of thousands of images quality assessed.

Once the images are culled the remaining images will be used to train an AI used to identify weeds in version 2 of the Weedscan App. The Doc’s first lot of over 90,000 images has been done and the second installment of over 70,000 images is being processed. Several staff and volunteers are working on around 900,000 images in total.

All that culling of motorsport and wildlife images over many years has come in handy. The work is easy enough, than even the car accident injuries have not stopped it. A nice change. Plus making mistakes will not have a material impact on the AI.

DXO Photolab 9 images

birds, Wildlife

The Doc has been trialing DXO Photolab 9. The results have been excellent and the program is easy to use (very much like Capture One). The Doc may need to change programs after Capture One went to a monthly/yearly subscription model. The Doc refuses to use subscription models.

Plus, it looks like Affinity Photo may also shift to a subscription model shortly. So The Doc needs to prepare for that as well.

Here are some test photos done in DXO Photolab 9. Click on any image to see the full size.

Viva Cristo Rey.

Feast day of St Francis of Assisi today

Uncategorised

St Francis is the Patron Saint of Ecologists, so it is appropriate The Doc posts this today, as wildlife is strong theme on this Blog. Happy feast day St Francis and we pray you help conserve our precious wildlife in Australia.

Viva Cristo Rey.

Mount Zero Taravale

AWC, forest, Landscape, Mount Zero Taravale, Mount Zero Taravale, mountains, Qld, river/creeks

In 2019 The Doc went on an AWC Supporter’s Event to Mt Zero Taravale out of Townville. Supporters arrived in that fancy red helicopter, flown out of Townville Airport, known as Garbutt Airfield in WW2.

He had previously driven up the entrance of the Sanctuary.

The Doc forgot to write up a report, so he only has some pictures. Better late than never. One day he may find the notes from the visit.

The Doc does remember meeting and speaking to AWC legend Peter Stanton at the event and later sending him some AWC slides The Doc had scanned of Peter at MZT, in the very early days of AWC ownership.

Viva Cristo Rey.

The first visit was to the entrance of the MZT, in a car. The road up was a bit narrow driving the Nissan Patrol and it was a long way down. That road was narrow and had blind corners everywhere.

The road down was not as bad when The Doc left the Supporter’s Event and someone else was driving!